“Waal, thar she be, all the same as we left her,” proclaimed the farmer, jerking his whip-hand forward. “Yep, thar she be, all right.”
The farmer was not emotional, and the words seemed a very commonplace statement of fact, but Burton guessed that beneath his rough exterior the old man carried a heart that turned to his home with that fervent loyalty to place so often found among the rural classes. It was his home—his own home, chopped from the bush and dug from the hillside, largely by the force of his own right arm. And between the home that is built and the home that is acquired is a gulf as broad as between birth and adoption.
“So that is your home,” the young man ventured. “What a beautiful place!”
“It is purty, haint it?” said the farmer, looking around, and there was a light of gratification in his eye. “An’ yet,” he continued, “yu’ll find men ’at wonder how a man can live in a place like this. They think electric lights an’ telephones and movin’ pictures an’—an’ the left foot on the rail most uv the time—they think that’s what makes life. Well, by hang, Ah spend a little money myself when Ah go to town.” The farmer paused and chuckled meditatively for a minute or two. “Yep. Some of ’em holler ‘Ol’ Sport’ soon’s they see me comin’. But Ah take my spice as an appetiser, not as a food. Why, hang it, youngster, Ah wouldn’t live in a city if they let me sleep in the Crystal Palace and sent my breakfast up with the mayor! Ah got twelve hundred and eighty acres of land here, an’ more cattle ’an it’s worth while countin’; Ah got all outdoors to stretch myself, and Ah ain’t wantin’ tuh trade with nobody.”
The farmer shaded his eyes with his hand. The rays of the sun, now almost horizontal, blinded their vision of the valley.
“Yep,” he said at last, with a sigh of satisfaction. “There’s Kid comin’. Ah reckoned she’d be watchin’ fer us.”
A cloud of dust rose lazily from the ravine; then stretched in a thin ribbon along the hot prairie trail. Burton’s eye was not trained to horsemanship, but it needed no experienced observer to know that the rider was approaching furiously. The streak of dust lengthened out as though shot from a gun.
“That’s my daughter,” the old man said, and Burton was conscious of a deep thrill of pride in his voice. “She allus rides like thet. She’s the girl fer a rusty cayuse, an’ don’t forget it. By hang, she’d ride a rabbit if she could saddle it. Yep, she’s a-comin’ to meet us.”
“To meet you, I guess,” corrected Burton.
The old man looked at him quizzically. “Waal, Ah guess thet is more technically keerect,” he admitted. “Ah ain’t sayin’ she’s comin’ out particular to meet you this trip.”